


Vera is Missing

by RawrLeaf



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Soft!Joan, sick vera, wentworth's staff is dense okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29477373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RawrLeaf/pseuds/RawrLeaf
Summary: Vera fails to show up for work. Joan thinks it might be funny to light Mr. Jackson on fire.
Relationships: Vera Bennett/Joan Ferguson
Kudos: 22





	Vera is Missing

**Author's Note:**

> I need honest to goddess sickfic. No one dies.

She’s been through Hep-C. She’s dealt with her mother and having the flu while taking care of said mother. What she’s never been is sick since she’s been with Joan Ferguson, clean freak extraordinaire. 

They’ve been enjoying a slow start to their relationship. Well, as slow as it can be considering they started by tumbling into bed one night when Vera felt her world crashing in and Joan had simply reached for her, tugging her into her arms and exquisite pleasure. Since that night, they had refrained from sex, Vera being skittish that doing it again would crash what they had. _“Confidence, Myshka.”_ fell upon her ear as if Joan was standing there with her, causing wrinkles to form by her eyes. 

On this Monday, however, Vera was most certainly not confident. She and Joan were supposed to have dinner tonight at Joan’s. They had purposefully scheduled a paired day off tomorrow so they could spend all night catching up. The last week at Wentworth had been utter hell with Bea Smith dragging a new inmate to the showers for a lesson when she caught her with a needle fully primed. Vera loved her job, but would often nod her head along with Joan’s tales of how difficult it was to stop from smacking some sense into some of the inmates. 

_“What was I doing again?”_ Goddess help her if she could actually hold her head up at all today without using her hands to do so. _“Right, work. I was getting up for work.”_ It took four attempts at standing to actually stay on her feet. _“Why does being sick involve a head full of cement?”_

\----------------------------------------

Glaring at Will until he took the hint, Joan shuffled the files on her desk while he seemed to finally leave her office as if she might light him on fire. She would, if only to laugh at how fast he could move when it mattered.

Concern creased her brow. Vera was twelve minutes late for her shift. Will had come to her hoping Vera was with her in a meeting. Joan had to stop her eyes from rolling at how obtuse her staff was. She and Vera had been together for eight months, Joan counting from that fateful night, Vera’s count starting two weeks later on their first official date. A smile lit Joan’s eyes as she recalled Vera’s conviction that their tumble in bed could not be counted as the beginning. 

_“You cannot count that...that fumble as a start to a relationship!” Vera’s eyes were wide, hands shaking slightly as she tangled her fingers together to try and hide the tremble her whole body was feeling, though her voice had been the firmest she’d ever heard it from her own mouth. There was absolutely no reasonable person who would count that night as a beginning, surely._

_“I can, and I will, Vera.” Joan was amused, to say the least. She genuinely didn’t care when Vera mentally began the count of their relationship, but she would hold that night on a pedestal for the rest of her life. “You were, are beautiful, and I will not let that memory slip to the darkness of the mind.” Many things in her life were filed away to never be heard from again. Vera’s face, head tipped back into the pillow, body arched into Joan’s as if she wanted them melded together, skin flushed from cheek to hip… No, she would never forget that night._

_“Only because I’m still young.”_

_Joan’s heart had cracked so hard she was certain the world could hear it. She’d immediately pulled Vera into her, wrapping her arms as tight as she dared without squishing her lover. That night she’d vowed to mend Vera’s cracked self-image if only to see her stand as high as her 5’2” frame could stretch._

Noting it had been another fifteen minutes since Will’s departure, Joan turned to her computer to pull up the CCTV over Reception, sending it flying backward to see if Vera had made it in yet. Squinting in frustration, Joan tugged her mobile from the clear bag in her desk. There were no texts and no calls from Vera on the display, causing Joan’s heart to thud painfully in her chest. “Where are you?”

Unlocking the screen, Joan tapped at the call icon and hit send. Hearing it ring through to voicemail, she hung up and tried again. Dropping the phone with a thunk on her desk, Joan quickly called Will back to her office over the walkie and packed her things. If Vera wasn’t at work, and wasn’t answering her phone, Joan would go to her. 

Hearing the knock, Joan stood and grabbed her bag, tucking her phone back into place so she could leave as soon as she handed Wentworth over to Will for at least the next hour. 

\---------------------------------------------

The sigh slipping from Joan’s lips upon reaching Vera’s house could have been relief or concern but she didn’t have time to dwell on the specifics. Vera’s car was still in her driveway. That’s all that currently mattered to the Governor.

She climbed the steps to the door, hand reaching to knock before she stopped herself. She did have a key. Vera had given it to her after Joan had given her one to her own house. She knew Vera wouldn’t be upset, but also didn’t know what state she’d find her in. Huffing at herself, she pulled her keys back out and flipped them to the one for Vera’s door, slipping quietly inside. _“Dark. Everything is dark.”_

“Vera?” She called out. Hearing nothing back disturbed her. _“What the hell? Where is she?”_

Joan checked every room on the main floor before heading up the stairs. The guest room was empty, so she walked further to Vera’s bedroom, pressing the door further open when she reached it, brow creasing when Vera wasn’t in her bed, or anywhere on the floor. “Vera?”

She closed her eyes, willing her ears to hear something. Finally, she did. Vera’s snuffling coming from the bathroom drew her to the other door in the room. “Vera?” She husked as she peeked around the door. “Oh, Myshka, what happened?”

Vera’s ears twitched upon hearing Joan’s first call from her bedroom, but her voice was not cooperating. Trying to look up at her lover made her neck ache so she hummed a low response at Joan’s question, head still caught and angled down toward her knees. She barely remembered coming into the bathroom. She had no idea how she’d wound up on the floor leaning against the tub.

Feeling smooth hands land on her knees, Vera finally let a sob loose, tipping forward as much as she could in her current state. 

Realizing she wasn’t going to get an answer, Joan quickly slid to Vera’s side, lifting her to cradle against her chest. _“Has she lost weight?”_

Standing next to the bed, Joan kicked her heels off and settled against the pillows with Vera in her lap, arms never leaving the smaller woman. Lips landing gently against a damp forehead, Joan’s mind fit the pieces together. Vera was most definitely unwell. 

“How long have you been sick?” She had seemed fine yesterday at Wentworth. 

Vera’s voice still wasn’t cooperating fully, but she managed to finally scratch out a rough, “dizzy last night...heavy...hurts…”

At the heat in her forehead, Joan was sure that _“hurts”_ was an understatement. She tried to shuffle Vera off her lap onto the bed but panicked hands grabbed her lapel and her cuff. “Shh, I’m not leaving you. I need to get you some things though, alright?” She tipped Vera’s head carefully to catch her eyes, receiving a whispered, “come back,” in reply. Smiling softly, Joan tapped Vera’s nose and set her down against the pillows, blazer coming off to be haphazardly thrown at the chair across the room as she walked downstairs to the kitchen. 

Though it only took Joan twenty minutes to return, Vera was desperate for her lover’s firm embrace to wrap her up again. Snuffling through three tissues, she was so very fed up with the weight of her head and the heat in her body. Reaching for the taller woman, Joan smiled and dropped soft kisses to her forehead, hands meeting in midair. 

“You are going to eat at least one piece of toast and drink your tea.” Joan would hand feed her if she had to. Vera needed medicine and Joan wasn’t going to attempt that on a completely empty stomach. Feeling her hands squeezed gently, Joan was satisfied that Vera wouldn’t fight her on this and sat down next to Vera to offer a body to lean against. 

“Wo..ork?” Barely escaped Vera’s chapped lips before a groan and attempted sneeze left her ribs in pain. The vague thought that Joan might disappear if she sneezed on her made her breath catch. 

Joan only caught up to what was happening when the smaller woman’s hands shot out to grasp her forearm. “Vera?” Twisting her body was awkward and she placed one hand on Vera’s chest, “breathe with me. In... one, two, three, four...out…,” voice firm as she counted the other woman through several breaths until she could speak again. “Work will still be there. What just happened?” 

_“Why do muscles even exist?”_ Vera thought crankily. They weren’t useful for anything! “Panic...get you sick…” 

“Perhaps the staff might finally realize we are together, hmmm?” Eyes lighting up at the mayhem it would cause, Joan missed Vera’s momentary fear-laced look. 

Did she want that? Gossip wasn’t exactly high on Vera’s list of things to be when it came to Wentworth.

“Maybe Fletch might leave me alone, finally.” That would be a scene to witness, now that she thought about it.

Joan took a breath. Mr. Fletcher had continued to be a nuisance to Vera even after Joan had stepped into an argument in the officers' lounge one day. A little fear of not only his boss but Vera’s much taller lover might be good for all concerned.

“Let’s get you healthy first, yes? The staff can wait and I’ve called Will to inform him that I won’t be back and you won’t be in.” Let them figure it out for once. She had more important matters to attend to today.


End file.
